PLAY IS THE WAY® is a practical methodology for teaching social & emotional skills using:

A unique program of physically interactive games(that both require and develop personal and social competencies).

5 guiding concepts(that are embedded through classroom activities and serve as a moral compass to help children do what they believe is right as opposed to doing what they are told).

A specific and empowering self-reflective language(that helps children to master their behavior in preparation for a responsible life in free society).

Suitable for 4-14 year old students

PLAY IS THE WAY® is as much a process as it is a program. Specifically, it’s a program of cooperative, physically interactive games that serve as the back bone for a process that builds a sustainable whole school culture of:

Continuous self-improvement

Adult guidance and role-modelling

Safety and non-violence

Peer support, trust, respect and understanding

Self-regulation and socially responsible behavior

Openness acceptance and belonging

Social and emotional competency that helps all children learn to the best of their ability and lead emotionally rich and rewarding lives throughout childhood and beyond.

PLAY IS THE WAY® is a common sense way of interacting with children that educators can use with confidence. It imparts a philosophy and language that children easily understand and eagerly embrace.

It makes sense that children are far more likely to thrive in socially and emotionally literate school communities. PLAY IS THE WAY® is a behavior education (not a management) programand process in which the entire school community (all adults and every child) can participate, grow and enjoy.

It is not a pencil and paper program with a finite set of lesson plans but a way of learning by doing – an experiential process that becomes a way of school life. It is a part of everyday core business – an ever present, positive influence that supports both students and educators as they work through the many and varied experiences of school striving to achieve ever higher educational standards with comparative levels of emotional and physical health and wellbeing.

Achieving both is not an easy task and it’s invariably harder if educators are not working in partnership with each other, students, parents and carers.

PLAY IS THE WAY® gives all parties a common language with key concepts and understandings around which to build communal responsibility for the desired outcomes of the stake holders.

School is working well when children can learn, play and be themselves in an environment free from threat, intimidation, fear or coercion.

PLAY IS THE WAY® helps build that environment and culture and sustains it for each and every year of a child’s life in school – a life which, if shaped well early, has every likelihood of flourishing as it transitions into adolescence and adulthood.

Guide childrenBy Wisdom Not By Force(Consilio Non Impetu)

PLAY IS THE WAY® OBJECTIVES

Amoeba Hula

To help the staff, students and parents of Elementary Schools create a safe learning environment in which students train to be independent, self-regulating, self-motivated learners in persistent pursuit of their personal best and able to get along with each other.

To help develop students of strong character and decency with the social and emotional competencies to live and learn well.

To cultivate empathetic students, considerate of themselves, each other and the world in which they live with sound and good reasons for the things they say and do.